May 4 - May 10, 1995

Faction Reaction

By Jeff Smith

OKAY, STUDENTS, TO briefly review: Last week we discussed the
subject of terrorism and how it works. We agreed that terrorism
is by definition scary, random and unexpected; essentially evil
and insane; and, given determination on the part of the terrorist,
almost impossible to prevent.

Terrorism makes you appreciate how well-off you are when you've
just got the usual problems like the Red Menace and the threat
of World War III to worry about. Global war is comparatively gentlemanly,
with opposite sides having the good sportsmanship to wear uniforms
so they can tell each other apart. They even have rules for war,
sort of like football.

Terrorism has no rules. The idea is to do the nastiest thing
you can imagine, in order to frighten and disgust your adversary,
to maximum effect. The whole point is to make your point and the
desired objective is to terrorize your adversary so as to get
him to change his behavior.

Probably the worst thing you could do to a terrorist is to ignore
him.

That will never happen, so let's move along to the next worst
thing, which is to catch him, convict him and lock him away in
some deep, dark hole where he has nobody to make stirring political
statements to but himself.

Even this second line of defense is an unlikely outcome, because
politicians and police of target states inevitably want their
pound of flesh, their time on stage and their maximum opportunity
to act decisive and powerful. So they make a great show of punishing
terrorists to the maximum, which only serves the interests of
terrorism. It reminds the target population of its recent loss,
great fright, and gives the terrorist a podium for his deranged
political rhetoric. He gets to be a martyr, especially if he's
executed, and the population or sub-culture whence he and his
lunatic approach to political action sprung is simply reinforced
in its preconceived notions about the target state.

Terrorism is wonderfully effective, due in large part to its
innate perversity.

But where it works its worst destruction is in the pattern of
overreaction that tends to follow terrorist acts. The target state,
while making all manner of bluff assertions that We're not
scared of you crazy bastards, and You're not going to stampede
US into staying in bed and pulling the covers over our
heads,goes into siege mode and tells its various police
and security apparati to treble their efforts to round up the
usual suspects, roust out the undesirables, and keep a sharp eye
on anybody who looks like he might fit into either of the first
two categories.

So all your typical, law-abiding, God-fearing, tax-paying citizens
breathe a sigh of relief, while your atypical, civil-disobedient,
atheistic protesters spend their time looking over their shoulders
to find Big Brother spying on them, and proving repeatedly--at
great expense in time and legal fees--that they aren't doing anything
illegal as they exercise their rights under the first 10 amendments
to the U.S. Constitution.

So the free exercise of personal rights is chilled while not
a damn thing is accomplished by way of preventing terrorism, because
terrorists are generally invisible until they strike. Foreign
terrorists can get all their prep work done back home and out
of sight, and just come in saying they want to visit Disneyland;
and domestic terrorists go around disguised as bowling league
members or Knapp Comfort-Tread Shoe salesmen or whatever.

What worries me most about the current reaction to the terrorism
visited upon Oklahoma City is the hypocritical and hollow assertions
of public figures all across the political spectrum that we are
not knuckling under to terrorism. This comes in the same breath
as their various pledges to pass anti-terrorist legislation, to
give the FBI a freer reign in spying on people and groups who
fit certain government-designed terrorist profiles, to strengthen
efforts at keeping weaponry out of the hands of private citizens...and,
of course, to point out the cynical opportunism of their political
or ideological opponents.

For all the pious claims of rising above petty politics in this
hour of national mourning--promoted even by the news media telling
us Senator Dole or President Clinton both are acting "presidential"
through the crisis, oh, and by the way, their approval ratings
in the polls are up 12 points--everybody is making hay out in
Oklahoma. I suppose I should applaud worthy sentiments, even if
they do have a political subtext, but damn, the hidden agendas
are so poorly disguised.

And here I go myownself, carping about those who disagree with
me. But I'm not going to call them any names and I'm not going
to insinuate that they're commies or tories or bullies or sissies.
I'm going to quote my man Rodney:

"Can't we all get along?"

I am sick to death--and I've said this before--of partisanship
that puts party ahead of public, of politicians who are Republicans
or Democrats first, and then Americans more like third or fourth.
After party affiliation comes some modifier like conservative
or moderate or the currently fashionable "fiscal conservative/social
moderate." After designating what sort of Republicanism or
Democratism one serves, we tend to get into how thoroughly washed
we are in the blood of the lamb, and then a nod to economic stratum,
and finally, if enough energy remains to give a shit, we acknowledge
our nationality.

Now I'm not advocating jingoism or xenophobia, but I do think
it worthwhile, if we are to live together as a nation, to work
together as a nation. Cooperatively, compassionately. Hell, jovially.
Much as I do enjoy giving some deserving subject a good, workmanlike
cussing-out, I'd damn-sight rather do it in good humor than bad.

Why don't we concentrate more on the 95 percent of opinions and
outcomes we agree upon, than the few where we differ?

Why don't we do more listening and less yelling? And as a corollary,
when was the last time you learned anything from a gang of loudmouths
who share your every opinion? And as a converse, you have a better
chance of getting your eyes opened to cool new stuff by listening
to people with different outlooks and experiences than your own.

What ever happened to the idea of the "loyal" opposition?
President Clinton is right in saying the mean-spiritedness of
much that passes for public debate today reflects all of the freedom
of free speech, with very little of the responsibility that comes
with it. I am not convinced Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy
and many of the tub-thumping champions of talk-radio really have
the best interests of the nation as their first priority.

I think they're interested in ratings, in personal power and
ego-gratification, and in certain narrow, personal agendas. To
a lesser extent, President Clinton is more partisan and less "presidential"
than I'd like, but I'll take him at his word and agree that responsible
practitioners of the First Amendment should elevate their discourse,
and encourage their public forums of debate, to a higher plane
of pursuit of the commonweal.